Picking a fulfillment center for crowd funded or other decks

[Mike Ratledge]

One thing that we have never really discussed that can be make or break for artists - especially new ones who have not already been through the process of a crowd funded playing card project from start to finish - is the selection of who to use for the backer shipping / fulfillment services.

I want to start a discussion about who you have used, if you are a provider of these services - what you have to offer including your business track record, etc

I puzzled over where to put this and frankly ended up posting it in this forum first. We may well move it elsewhere if it makes more sense.

More than a few campaigns have ended up bankrupt or never being able to fulfill their decks due to lack of planning and sometimes lack of common sense about trying to self-fulfill hundreds (or more) packages without professional assistance or experience.

If you are an artist who has success or horror stories to share, please do!

[willroya]

I charge a small fee + actual shipping cost. I only make enough to cover labor and supply cost for this service so I ask to get a special price on the decks so I can make money reselling them. This seems to be a win win situation for most creators. Creators get their rewards fulfilled at a reasonable cost, in a timely manner and a chance to unload some more of their decks, which is especially helpful to meet moq. I get a supply of the cards to distribute.

If anyone is interested feel free to contact me for more details. At this time I am only interested in doing fulfillment for USPCC decks unless it is something I really take a liking to. Besides my own projects I did fulfillment for the Freedom and Opulent deck. I'm also happy to help with the whole process of creating / marketing the deck as well.

[guru]

Not sure how I missed this but here you go.

I've fulfilled 3 Kickstarter projects till date while offering free shipping worldwide and not US alone. There were challenges initially, foremost being ability to converse with account managers & warehouse managers in China and I think I am at a stage where things are much smooth than how they started in 2016.

I'd plans to offer both printing and fulfillment services through GPCC but it has been quite busy at work. I can still take select offers of collaboration and so, please feel free to reach out to me. On shipping front, I can offer better and low rates than elsewhere coupled with full tracking, secure packaging (kryptonian bubble wrap as named by a backer), automated tracking emails to backers/customers while the fulfillment is done from warehouse in China and Hong Kong.

On printing, the new finish "Ornate" is looking pretty good and this is the first in-house finish (starting from pre-treatment, embossing on stock, post varnish etc. and not just applying varnish on an already embossed stock) on a 335 GSM Imported Casino grade European stock. Print quality is second to none as can be seen on the last 2 decks coming from Guru Playing Card Company (GPCC). Different gilding techniques are available through another partner as can be seen in the previous projects all of which had gilt edges.

So, selective collaboration offers where I can take care of both printing & fulfillment are welcome at this stage.